political orators made merry over this round-house, as being the only assurance they had that a road which would require the stabling of iron horses at a divisional point would some day be constructed. The slow progress of transcontinental railway building afforded ammunition to the opponents of the Mackenzie Government in the House of Commons. And there is no record of an Opposition ever allowing an opportunity to oppose to go by unused. In one year we find that redoubtable fighter, Dr. (later Sir) Charles Tupper, moving a long resolution urging the Government “to employ the available funds of the Dominion to complete the road.” This was voted down. Next year that unique, somewhat peculiar, but quite brilliantly versatile publicist, Mr. Amor de Cosmos, of British Columbia, moved a vote of censure on the Government for the slowness of their building of the road to the Coast. This resolution did not get far in the House. The Coast was so far away that the project of building all the way to the Pacific gave even the Opposition a chill when it came squarely before them. Hon. George W. Ross, a Mackenzie supporter, moved that only such progress should be attempted as would “not increase the existing rates of taxation,” which manifestly would mean not much progress. Dr. Tupper came back to the attack in April, 1877, with a motion of censure, but this was negatived also. During all this time that astute statesman, Sir John A. Macdonald, was studying the political horoscope, and all of a sudden, in 1878, he propounded a policy of protection and railway construction which caught the popular imagination and he was swept into power again. There was a swift revival of optimism, because there was a revival of trade, and the wave carried the Canadian Pacific Railway enterprise on its crest to new heights of success. CHAPTER V Getting up Speed Whether a protective tariff brings real or fictitious prosperity, and whether it enriches the few or the many, are questions which are fortunately outside the scope of this book. But, anyway, the fact, historically, is that with the advent of Sir John Macdonald and his National Policy of protection in 1878, there came quite a pronounced outburst of new faith in the future possibilities of Canada. There were, no doubt, other subsidiary causes, and some even hold that lean and fat years come in cycles. But, in any case, there was a decided restoration of public confidence in all legitimate business enterprises, and, what was still more important, there came a distinctive national sentiment and pride which made the vast project of the Canadian Pacific Railway from ocean to ocean a distinct possibility.